Pressure: Nigella Lawson has been faced with a string of personal problems in recent months

An impossibly dewy and gorgeous version of Nigella Lawson still peeks out from the cover of April’s Vogue magazine on news-stands.

But in pictures taken on a London street this week, she looks like a different woman altogether: grey-skinned and worn down, her neck lined and her hair sadly sparse.

For once, you can easily believe she is 54 years old.

Her supporters loyally insist she is ‘subdued’ but far from beaten. For her part, the best fighting talk she could manage — and this was before that embarrassing business at Heathrow airport, where she was denied permission to fly to the U.S. — was: ‘Well, I’m alive. You know, I have had better times.’

With the future of her latest TV show The Taste uncertain, a lavish lifestyle to run and continuing toxic fall-out from the court battle with her one-time aides, the Grillo sisters, these are stressful times for the Domestic Goddess.

The embarrassment of being denied entry to America, on account of her self- confessed use of cocaine and cannabis, was considerable.

It certainly damaged her image — reviving the drugs scandal that erupted during the trial of her former assistants just as she was hoping to put it behind her.

Brian Balthazar, head of programming for AOL Entertainment in America, said: ‘This has to be devastating for her. An incident like this raises all sorts of questions of how she can continue to work and move beyond the troubles of her past.’

The timing is terrible, too. Over the next three weeks, ABC is expected to decide whether to commission a third series of The Taste. Even before the current brouhaha, it seemed unlikely.

The show has been mauled by critics, and its relative lack of success is a matter of great sadness for Nigella, who was chasing her big break in America.

I’m told that Anthony Bourdain, a fellow judge on The Taste and a big name on U.S. TV, has been championing Nigella among his contacts and that she still hopes to have a career on the other side of the pond.

And while she may be relatively unknown in America, she is extremely well-paid there, reputedly earning a £120,000 an episode for The Taste — far more than she could hope to earn here.

Torment: The celebrity chef wept as she discussed her troubles on a chat show last month

Sources close to Nigella insist she has become awkwardly aware of money since splitting from Charles Saatchi.

Her former husband is worth £130 million, and in their ten years together, Nigella became accustomed to his head-spinning largesse: £7,000 on a sofa, £11,000 on Glastonbury tickets, £25,000 on flowers and so on.

Yet Nigella walked out of the marital home with nothing apart from the contents of the kitchen, including her immense collection of cookbooks. It seems she values her dignity too much. (Not for nothing does an old school friend call her ‘lovely, but terribly grand’.)

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However, she does have a respectable fortune of somewhere between £15 million and £20 million — her career earnings so far.

She is living in a £11,000-a-month mews house following stays in various hotels, but is said to have earmarked £3 million for a new London home.

By any normal standards, Nigella ought surely to consider herself extremely wealthy. Yet apparently she is worried that she might be ‘broke’ by this time next year.

Why? It seems that she will complain in anxious tones that she is ‘no good’ with money.

Free: Nigella is said to feel liberated following her divorce from Charles Saatchi

Neither she nor Saatchi seem to have paid much attention to the gigantic bills run up by the Grillos, hence the extraordinary court case that saw the sisters cleared of wrongdoing.

Post divorce, apparently she allows household bills to mount up in a disorganised muddle, but has her redoubtable PA Anzelle Wasserman take care of them eventually.

She has also run up huge legal fees after engaging expensive libel and divorce lawyers. One source claims the post-Grillos legal bill was in the ‘high six figures’.

No wonder she has been heard wishing she could return to the simple life in Shepherd’s Bush, West London, she enjoyed with her first husband, the late John Diamond.

One friend described her lifestyle as a ‘mink-lined coffin’ because she will have to hang on to a high level of success to sustain it. Put simply, she cannot afford not to work.

For example, she recently spent a weekend in Claridge’s hotel in London with a female friend, hanging out in pyjamas and ordering room service ‘for a laugh’.

The bill seems to have run into thousands. It’s a lot of money to pay on a whim, even if you are a multi-millionaire.

And she is understood to have kept ‘Team Cupcake’ — four women who help her with her website, Twitter feed, cookery app and the daily organisation of her life. She has to pay all their salaries without Saatchi’s help.

Star: The Taste, starring Ludo Lefebvre and Anthony Bourdain alongside Nigella, is struggling in the U.S. television ratings

But — money aside — what is the rest of her new life like?

By all accounts, Nigella, while sometimes lonely, likes the freedom of not being married.

Charles was greedily possessive, demanding she join him in bed to watch TV all afternoon and evening, and insisting on sitting next to her at dinner parties so they could whisper together.

She loves reading, but had to keep up with the latest novels in the back of cabs so he wasn’t made jealous by her engagement in something other than him.

Now, the Oxford graduate is enjoying books again. She boasted to Vogue, for instance, that she was reading Dante — in Italian. She has also been devouring Dickens and Philip Roth.

In a brave attempt to build a new life for herself, she has also reconnected with her old social circle. There have been dinners with the actor Richard E. Grant and the novelist Salman Rushdie, an old confidant.

Nigella is also starting to go out to events again. Charles hated parties, but she does not. She was at producer Charles Finch’s Bafta party in February and the recent premiere of the West End production of Fatal Attraction.

She was also a surprise guest at a private party to celebrate the publication of author Hanif Kureshi’s new book. The London literary crowd very much pre-dates Charles Saatchi’s influence — and they are delighted to have ‘the old, confident’ Nigella back.

Her ‘coven’ of close friends includes fun-loving actress Maria McErlane, documentary producer Olivia Lichtenstein and heiress Jemima Khan. Make-up artist Tricia Woolston is another trusted presence, as is film producer Tracey Scoffield, a school friend.

To these have been added male protectors who adore her. They include her smoothie agent Mark Hutchinson, greengrocer Andreas Georghiou, her lawyer Ian Burton and fishmonger Rex Goldsmith.

Defiant: Nigella pictured arriving at court to give evidence in the trial of the Grillo sisters last year

There is, though, no new man — yet. Nigella seems to have no appetite for dating, though her friends expect it won’t be long before she finds a romantic partner.

Instead there is a scruffy version of domestic bliss. Vogue writer Katherine Phelan found her in a messy home in Bayswater, with books all over the floor, propped up on silk pillows and drinking builders’ tea.

She declined to talk about her failed marriage, saying: ‘I never wanted to speak about my divorce. I had to in court and I hated doing that and I won’t do that again.’ Professionally, she is producing a new book and cookery app for smart phones.

But far more significantly she has been re-establishing some harmony at home for her children Mimi, 20, and Bruno, 17.

Saatchi found it hard to cope with the youngsters and they ended up leading separate lives — but now they are at least once more a firm family unit.

There is regret on Nigella’s side over her relationship with Saatchi’s daughter Phoebe, from his marriage to Kay Hartenstein. Phoebe, 19, lived with them and regarded Nigella warmly as a stepmother.

But according to sources on the Saatchi side of the fence, it was Phoebe who became alarmed about Nigella smoking cannabis and informed her father.

Saatchi later brought Phoebe to the phone to lay accusations against Nigella before journalists. Nigella, to her credit, sent Phoebe a birthday present last year, but it was returned to her unopened.

She has survived a spat with Saatchi’s new girlfriend, Trinny Woodall, who blogged bizarrely: ‘It’s great that at 50 life can still grab you by the throat.’ Nigella retaliated by posting a recipe for ‘slut’s spaghetti’ and later insisted it was not a dig.

The romance between Woodall and Saatchi appears, after six months, to have lost its sparkle.

Nigella, meanwhile, remains alone, at times stunned by the force at which her once perfect public image has been shattered. To cheer herself up, she’s planning a trip to Malaga over Easter with friends.

She remains philosophical about her setbacks and desires only to preserve a little dignity.

As she wrote in a newspaper a few weeks ago, she has learned a tough lesson: ‘Perhaps the truth is that everything in life that matters — in the professional arena as with affairs of the heart — cannot be planned.’